More on the new administration’s emerging graphic identity

I wrote about my like for the new Recovery.gov logo a little while ago, and expressed my admiration for one of the designers who helped come up with it.

Well, now a different one of the group has been interviewed by the New York Times about the logos, and it’s an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how the logo came about — in just four days! I’m fascinated and a little in awe.

Says designer Steve Juras:

The direction — ‘don’t make it look too governmental’ — that we were given certainly stakes out an interesting position.” What’s also interesting about this logo is that its goal is to become obsolete. Just as the W.P.A. was retired when the Depression was over (and World War II began), the ARRA logo is tied to the fate of the economy. “Hopefully, the recovery effort will work so well and so quickly that we’re no longer in recovery but back at full strength and don’t need it,” Juras said. “The sooner it becomes a historical artifact, the better.”

So much has been written about the Obama campaign and its skilfull use of branding. I wonder if there’s a social science thesis in there somewhere about mixed-race children with absent fathers and their search for identity.